Marked
by did-you-reboot
Summary: What path should a marked man choose? -- There is but a single potion that could turn the tides of the war. And so it follows that Severus Snape holds the war in his hands. AU after OotP, but with elements of HBP and DH thrown in.
1. First Mark

**Marked**

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_Elements taken from HBP and DH, but the story is AU after OotP._

_I got into a fanfic-y mood and decided to reboot this fanfic. Not that anybody read it before. Ahaha. Anywho, for anybody that did, I made some minor characterization edits in this chapter. Enjoy!_

_Pairings? Well. I don't like to reveal things, you see. Takes all the fun out of it.  
_

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**First Mark: The Weapon of the Hopeful Ones**

_What path should a marked man choose?_

_-----_

"It is always a pleasure to see you, Severus. Even more so tonight."

Dark, slit eyes bore down on silhouette kneeling before him. "Because, you see, my little owl finally brought me the procedure for a very important potion."

"What potion, my Lord?" answered Severus Snape, slowly raising his eyes to look the Dark Lord in his inhuman, snakelike eyes. The Dark Lord's face slowly contorted into a smile laden with malicious pleasure.

"Umbra Animus, and more specifically, the Umbra Animus potion. I trust you've heard of it." Lord Voldemort stroked his cheek with a fingernail, taking immense pleasure in the realization unfolding within his most trusted spy.

"I was under the impression that Umbra Animus was a myth. I do not know the full extent of its effects," Snape replied, his black eyes widening ever so slightly. In all his avid research of potions, be it Dark potions or not, Snape had managed to find only vague mentions of such a potion—a potion that could, potentially, tip the scales in the Dark's favor.

"All record has, regrettably, been destroyed," said the Dark Lord silkily. "All record but that single book. It is a…complex potion that takes ten moon cycles to complete. It has taken Kuwago the better part of sixteen years to find it."

At that, Snape's eyes widened a little more. Kuwago—Eris Kuwago? Contempt began bubbling from his stomach as memories of his school days surged forth from the annals of his mind. Eris Kuwago was—or at least, had been—an irritatingly eccentric Gryffindor who had taken on the Dark Mark for reasons that were never made clear. She did, however, have a sort of unbalanced and overcurious personality, so it did not require any stretch of imagination to see her getting too immersed in the world of the Dark Arts . Snape loathed her almost as much as he loathed James Potter and Sirius Black, not because of any cruelty toward him but because of her aggravating habit of trying to make friends with him, which often resulted in _his_ humiliation. However, she had disappeared shortly before the murder of Lily and James Potter, with the only Death Eater activity she had ever taken part in that attracted any attention was the blood-splattered murder of Benjy Fenwick.

"Ah, I see you remember her," the Dark Lord said, his voice a low, almost bestial rasp. "I want to show you a component of Umbra Animus that is as important as the potion itself." Snape allowed his gaze to flicker once to the Dark Lord's hand—it was moving restlessly, as though in anticipation…Snape had not seen, nor felt, the Dark Lord in such excitement in a very long time.

"There is a spell," he continued, and Snape could hear the anticipation permeating through his voice, "that will grant control of the Umbra Animus's effects. It is…a _precursor _to the Imperius Curse. I will show you." Snape steeled himself for the curse as the Dark Lord raised his wand, his muscles tightening and his jaw locking, but just as Snape thought the curse would come, the Dark Lord turned his wand tip toward the darkest corner of the room.

Eris Kuwago materialized out of the shadows and took a step forward.

The darkness seemed to cling to her as though unwilling to let go, shrouding her eyes, her body. "Kuwago, come closer and say hello to Severus." She took a few steps forward, her eyes shining forth from the shadows of her bowed head, as she looked to Snape with the same eccentric smile that so aggravated him. Immediately he felt the faint vestiges of the irritation from his school days returning.

"Hello, Severus," she said, her lopsided smile growing a little wider.

"Watch closely, Severus, what the spell is capable of doing," said the Dark Lord, his eyes narrowing in enjoyment. He pointed his wand at Kuwago and uttered, "_Anima imperius!_"

Almost as if on the Dark Lord's command, the shadows hugging Kuwago seemed to wrap themselves even more tightly about her, and somehow even the absolute black of her clothing in the darkness seemed to grow even darker. The light in her eyes disappeared, lost among the pools of unconscious thought, and she went strangely limp, as though suspended by strings, until she slowly reached into her robe for her wand. Her hand quivered as it turned the wand tip towards her chest and her mouth slowly opened to utter a spell.

"_Crucio._"

Snape could hardly conceal his alarm at the sight of Kuwago contorting in pain, her anguished shrieks piercing the foreboding silence until finally she collapsed, silent, to the floor. How could a spell force a person to turn the Cruciatus Curse on themselves—how could a spell create the force of will required to _use_ the curse? "And so you see," the Dark Lord said almost smugly as Kuwago groaned and pulled herself into a kneeling position, "the power of the spell. Rather than controlling someone by force of suggestion to the mind, it rather controls by means of manipulating the soul."

"There must be a catch," Snape said quietly.

"Always, Severus," said the Dark Lord, slowly returning his gaze to Snape. "The body and the spirit are one, and the body often reflects the spirit's unease. Controlling the soul by force wreaks havoc on the body, and a broken body will simply give us more Inferi to amuse ourselves with." In the silence that followed, Snape could feel the Dark Lord's mind brushing over his own, groping about in the depths of his thoughts for the emotion he was carefully allowing to leak forth from his Occlumency. The Dark Lord seemed satisfied and nodded once.

"Kuwago has the privilege of being your…_assistant_. Make sure _she _reads the procedure to you. This part I must stress." There was a brief silence before Snape felt the Dark Lord's presence leave his mind, but not before injecting him with a sharp spasm of anger that Snape knew quite well indicated that these orders were absolute and would be regarded with a most scrutinizing eye. "All will become clear once Kuwago begins to explain the procedure. Go now, Severus."

With a bow of his head, Snape slipped out the room, followed silently by the dark shadow that was Kuwago. Once she gently shut the door, Snape turned swiftly to face her and found himself staring into a gaunt, lean face that seemed almost happy to see him. Almost at once the memory of that exact same expression forced its way through his swirling thoughts, and at once he had the exact same reaction to said expression. "What?" he snarled, narrowing his eyes.

"It's nice to see you again," she said simply, the inflection in her voice ambiguous but her face still betraying a vague delight unbecoming of a Death Eater.

Sneering in irritation, Snape narrowed his dark eyes even more—it seemed that Kuwago was still as infuriatingly eccentric in that regard. "When shall I begin reading the procedure to you?" she asked softly. Snape glared for a moment into her eyes and even without explicit use of Legilimency could feel a peculiar sort of trepidation milling about her mind—a peculiar feeling that he wasn't accustomed to and yet felt a strange sort of affinity for.

"I will contact you later," said Snape curtly. He muttered something under his breath to her. "Be in that general area in three days. I have _other _business to attend to."

"And if I happen to stumble upon you sooner?"

"For your sake, I hope you do not."

-----

Snape swept furtively down the darkened streets, the night breeze rustling the drying branches of the trees. There was a distinct feel of neglect blowing about in the wind, as though the entire town was shriveling upon itself. He shut his eyes for a moment to block out the clamoring thoughts in his head—at least until he reached his destination: his home.

Or rather, his house.

He was not quite sure whether he had a home or not anymore. Home was a delightful illusion to him, an illusion he had stopped indulging in even before he attended Hogwarts as a student. No, a home was something he would never have, regardless of Dumbledore's relentless insistence that he did indeed have a home with the friends in Hogwarts. Dumbledore's belief was a quite insightful one, apart from one fundamental problem with the equation: Severus Snape did not have friends. He had long since stopped believing that he had _friends_—a double agent has no friends.

Only enemies.

The world pushed at him from all sides, and Severus Snape was surprised he was not yet crushed by the sheer pressure of it all.

At last, he reached a house on a dingy street named Spinner's End, and, after casting a cautious glance about in the darkness around him, he unlocked the door and slipped inside.

Tossing his black travelers' cloak onto a pile of worn, old books and sullenly waving a hand at the cloud of dust that drifted into the air, he took a seat in an armchair that looked as though nothing had sat in it for years. Without even a passing thought at his empty stomach rattling around in his body, he covered his face in his hands and began formulating the strategies he would need to use in order to assure that his life would still be residing in his body.

Each time Severus Snape sat down to map out a plan, he got up with a mere skeleton of one.

It was difficult to plan out more specific strategies when the Dark Lord springs something new upon him, and so, as often happened lately, he was unable to formulate detailed contingency plans.

As such, Snape was a master of quick thinking and deft manipulation of situational variables. He had learned to maneuver the little details almost on command, turning unpleasant events into pleasing ones, and turning unwanted victories into apparent defeats. Without that expertise, he wouldn't still be breathing. He wouldn't still be living. At times he regretted—and even resented—the situation he'd put his life in, but his earlier actions, guided by the passion and utter foolishness of youth, ensured that he was to walk the rest of his years with shackles upon his soul. The Death Eaters knew what they wanted and their souls embraced it, and the Order members knew what they wanted and _their_ souls embraced it—he, the double agent, was lost, and his soul was being twisted and torn by the moral battle raging within him. Here he was, desiring the light that the Order members sought, all the while being forced deeper and deeper into the bowels of darkness.

After several hours into the daylight passed, his stomach was howling for sustenance and, begrudgingly, he fixed himself a turkey ham sandwich. Turkey ham was something that held the inexplicable power to ease the anguish of his position. There was something about turkey ham that rooted him to the moment, and he was able to focus on eating long enough to relax his tense muscles and relieve some of the soreness in them. Several times in the course of his life he had contemplated examining the components of turkey ham to understand why exactly he enjoyed it so much—he despised turkey and loathed ham—but he hadn't wanted to lose hold of one of the things in his life that truly seemed mystical and each time he had refrained from initiating such examinations.

Once he had finished, he sullenly took to sitting in his chair again, staring blankly at the bookcases surrounding him and vainly hoping, just as he did each time he sat in his chair, that his way would suddenly become clear to him. It was a futile hope; he knew that he must find his way on his own, but he neither knew how to find it nor what he would do once he reached the end of that path. He supposed that at times, it was that useless hope that sustained him and kept him in control of himself—a flare of light in the middle of the darkness.

By the time Snape rose from his armchair, the sun was well below the horizon and some of the dust in the air had settled upon him, making him look as though he was as old and neglected as the other furniture in the room. With a deep breath, he Summoned his traveling cloak, a cloud of dust trailing in the air after it, and put it on as he strode towards the front door. With a final, almost wistful look at his sitting room, he silently cast his security wards as he slipped out the door. Taking care nobody was within visual range, he looked to the evening sky as though asking it for direction, and Disapparated.

-----

"Glad to see that you've arrived in one piece, Severus."

Snape nodded stiffly toward Minerva McGonagall as he took his customary place in the corner of the room, watching as Order members began milling inside the kitchen of the Weasley's home. Lupin passed by him with a forced hello, which he replied with a grunt and nothing more. Order meetings were things he did not look forward to, especially when Dumbledore was supposed to make clear to them a plan he had concocted, which must involve Snape in some way or other, judging by the briefest of glances toward him when he had announced it.

"Where's Dumbledore?" asked Bill Weasley, glancing around at the small crowd inside the kitchen. "He said he'd be here tonight."

"He told me he'd be about ten minutes late," said McGonagall. "He gave me the impression that he was going to bring a new member with him."

"Well, that's good," said Molly Weasley brightly. "We could do with some new people."

"Yes, we could," Lupin said wearily. "Things haven't been going well."

"No, I suppose not," Arthur Weasley said with a sigh. There was a brief silence, and Snape felt that the rather gloomy feeling in the room was akin to the dementors' effects. "Dumbledore did say he had a plan—a _weapon_ of sorts, I suppose—that could help us, if even a little bit." At that, the room seemed to brighten and idle chatter began filling the air. Snape watched them silently, none of them paying him any attention, which was how he preferred it—he did not need to be bothered, and certainly nobody else had any need to bother him.

"Albus should be here any minute now," McGonagall said. "Come over here, Severus—you know he prefers that you be _with_ us when you give your reports." Scowling, Snape strode towards the table they were surrounding and took the empty space beside Tonks, who edged away slightly. He could feel a sort of mutual dislike directed towards him, and it made his scowl slightly more pronounced.

There was a polite knock on the kitchen door, and immediately all turned their eyes to it. Arthur strode to the door and, without peering through its small window, said, "Declare yourself!"

"Albus Dumbledore and guest."

"What is your favorite kind of sweet?" demanded Arthur.

"I'm rather partial to sherbet lemons."

At that, Arthur cautiously opened the door and after peering at who was apparently Dumbledore outside, threw it open. "Good evening, everyone," Dumbledore said, smiling and taking a step inside. He turned to glance at someone out of view and said gently, "Come in, there's nothing to be afraid of. You're among friends."

Snape could feel the vein throbbing in his temples at the sight of Eris Kuwago entering the kitchen.

"_Merlin's_—Eris?" Lupin said incredulously, his eyes widening as Kuwago stood, shadowlike, at Dumbledore's side, her head bowed. Even in the light of the kitchen, everything about her seemed shrouded, as though she was absorbing the light that hit her. After a brief silence, she raised her head to peer at Lupin, her rather lopsided smile making her seem more than a tad unhinged.

"Hello, Remus."

Dumbledore, who seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood, beamed at them and gestured to Kuwago with a flourish of his hand. "I want to introduce you to Eris Kuwago, Death Eater assumed to be dead sixteen years ago, and now the newest spy for the Order." There was a collective intake of breath at that bit of information, though Snape could hardly breathe for the irritation skittering through him. He was not entirely sure why Kuwago aggravated him to such an extent—there was something about her that seemed to continually strike a nerve in him. However, a minimal amount of said aggravation was whittled away by the sight of how bedraggled—almost like Lupin—she looked, with her hair cut short to her chin, layered as though a machete had lopped it off. Her black dress seemed to be fraying at the hem and collar, and her black traveling cloak was torn in some places.

"Albus, are you quite sure?" McGonagall said cautiously, shooting Kuwago a dubious glance. Dumbledore nodded patiently.

"I am, in fact," he said, and then putting a hand on Kuwago's shoulder and gently nudging her a bit closer to the group. However, it seemed nobody was convinced.

"Albus, she—Benjy—" McGonagall began in protest, but Dumbledore stopped her with a hand.

"As with Severus, I trust Eris to the fullest," said Dumbledore, looking at McGonagall over his half-moon glasses.

"But—why?" persisted McGonagall, still eyeing Kuwago warily. At that, Dumbledore gave a small smile.

"'_Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned_.'"

There was a silence as everyone's eyes were fixed on Dumbledore. Snape rather wondered how much Kuwago had told Dumbledore and if, perhaps, he was alluding to the fact that she had been used as demonstration subject for the Anima Curse—it almost seemed to him that Lord Voldemort saw her as a..._plaything_.

"Now, I believe that Severus's report is in order," Dumbledore said cheerily.

Steeling himself for the report, as he did every other time, he began relating all that the he had learned on his last encounter with the Dark Lord. This time, he had no reason to edit any bits and pieces out, as he had sometimes done previously in order to keep on the Dark Lord's good side, and when he finished, everyone predictably looked positively brimming with questions.

"So, let's get this straight," Lupin said pensively, stroking his chin, "the Umbra Animus potion, or rather, procedure, involves some sort of precursor to the Imperius Curse that we've decided to call the Anima Curse, which controls a person through the soul."

"Correct," Snape said icily, narrowing his eyes at Lupin.

"Do you have any idea what the actual potion does?" Bill asked.

"I have a…vague idea," said Snape. "I was, up until yesterday, under the impression that Umbra Animus was merely a myth of sorts."

"I know what the potion does."

All eyes fixed on Kuwago, who had remained silent until now. She looked up at Bill with a dark look in her eyes and reached into her cloak, drawing out one of the oldest and most tattered books Snape had ever seen and placing it gingerly on the table. "I finally found it a about a year ago in Tonga," she sighed, closing her eyes wearily. Immediately, Bill reached for the book, but she pushed his hand away and shook her head. "Don't touch. There's a rather unfortunate enchantment on it."

"What does the enchantment do?" Arthur asked, staring at the book as though unable to believe it was still in one piece.

"It makes it impossible to create any other written copy than that book, as well as causing the reader…considerable pain," explained Dumbledore, and Kuwago grimaced at the last words, "and thus, the Dark Lord has delegated Eris the task of reading the procedure to Severus. Due to the nature of the potion, should Severus successfully brew the potion, it could prove quite problematic for the Order."

"What precisely does it do?" asked McGonagall somberly, a concerned look in her eyes.

"From what I was able to gather when I read it, it creates a shadow of the drinker's soul," Kuwago said quietly, though the eccentric smile had reappeared on her face. Snape's eyes widened ever so slightly at that news—if it could create a shadow of a soul, then surely the Anima Curse is what can control the shadow.

"How does that become a problem for us? What do the shadows do?" Bill asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

"They do nothing and eventually will disappear," Dumbledore said, "unless a certain spell is used to control it. I believe that spell is the Imperius precursor that Severus mentioned. And with control of the shadow, it is possible to—alter—the nature of another person's soul."

"What happens when a soul is altered?" Tonks asked, bewildered.

"If, for example, Voldemort was to create a shadow of his soul and successfully manage to have it corrupt, say, Alastor," Dumbledore said, looking quite concerned, "Alastor could quite possibly become one of Voldemort's most valued assets." McGonagall put a hand to her mouth in shock.

"Albus, you don't mean—if he got _you_—" she said, her eyes wide with horror. Dumbledore nodded solemnly.

"Yes. This potion could be their greatest weapon, but it is not theirs alone."

There was silence at Dumbledore's words. What he said was true—Umbra Animus could deal the fatal blow to either side of the great war between the Darkness and the Light. It could be their worst nightmare, but at the same time it was their greatest asset. And if Snape brewed the potion…

…the fate of the war would be in his hands.

"Surely something this strong wouldn't have been lost for so long," Arthur said, breaking the pensive silence.

"It is one of the oldest and Darkest of magic," Snape said quietly. "There is little or no mention of it in even the oldest Dark books I have come across. It is almost as though it is…taboo." There was a tense silence, the anxiety in the air almost palpable. "Even, in the most remote chance that I do not successfully brew the potion on the first try," he continued, unable to keep a small amount of smugness out of his voice, "the Dark Lord will have the Anima Curse to…amuse himself with."

"If that curse controls the soul, is the potion really necessary?" Arthur asked, the furrow in his brow becoming more pronounced.

"The curse is very damaging to the body with prolonged use," said Dumbledore, "and it requires constant control—it cannot force the victim to, for example, continue with daily life while the caster tends to other affairs."

"How can we tell if someone is being controlled?" asked Molly, clutching Arthur's arm worriedly. Kuwago smiled darkly.

"You'll be able to tell," she said. "It's very obvious."

"Then why bother with it? Why not use the Imperius Curse instead?" McGonagall asked.

Dumbledore smiled sadly, and glanced briefly at Kuwago. "Because it can create the force of will, unlike the Imperius Curse," he explained. Everyone around him seemed perplexed.

"How does that make it different from the Imperius Curse?" McGonagall persisted.

"I'll show you how strong it is," Kuwago said suddenly. McGonagall stood firm and silently fixed her with a defiant eye, but Kuwago had instead turned from her to Snape. He glared at her accusatorily as she strode around the table to face him, that irritating smile ominously absent from her face as she stared up at him. "You know the incantation, Severus," she said, an unsettling hint of acrimony in her voice. "Show them what it can do. Use your anger as means of control. Show them what the Dark Lord did to me." She took a step back and looked at Snape expectantly.

Pulling out his wand, he pointed it at Kuwago and, without hesitation, uttered, "_Anima imperius!"_ Immediately, even in the bright light of the kitchen, the shadows seemed to wrap themselves tighter about Kuwago's body as the light left her eyes. Time seemed to slow as she slumped over, zombie-like, as Snape felt a sort of pulsing feeling in his chest—the connection between them. As per Kuwago's—_suggestion_—he narrowed his eyes at her and quite easily summoned quite a bit of anger, and he could feel the pulsing in his chest growing stronger. With hardly a thought, he willed her to straighten up and pull her wand out of her robe; it wasn't a conscious or explicit order but rather more of the unconscious thought akin to willing one's own limbs to move. He could feel the connection between them wavering as Kuwago reached into her robe to pull out her wand, but, as more anger bubbled forth, the connection stabilized and Snape willed her to point the wand at herself. As she did so, the connection wavered wildly, as though something was violently twisting his heart and it was all he could do to keep control. Finally, once it had stabilized slightly, he seized his opportunity and injected into the connection the all the rage and will he was able to muster to cast the Cruciatus Curse. As if in slow motion, he watched her open her mouth to speak the incantation, and he could feel the connection beginning to splinter.

"_Crucio._"

Time seemed to speed up again as Kuwago howled in pain, her eyes clenched shut and yet the wand still pointed at herself. In the infinitesimal moment before the connection between him and Kuwago fractured, Snape was overwhelmed with a feeling that was not his and that threatened to grip his soul, a feeling not unlike feverish determination that was almost frightening to him, and with a grunt of surprise he felt a sharp push against his chest, knocking him into the table and causing his knee to buckle. When he regained some command of his senses, he noticed that Lupin was helping Kuwago off the floor, and, with a quivering hand, he reached for the table edge and slowly got to his feet.

"Oh yes, the Dark Lord likes his new toy," Kuwago gasped, a twisted smile on her face as Lupin dusted her arm off. "He likes his little games." She stared at the floor, hunched over and breathing heavily, as the others in the room exchanged glances. Snape watched her as her knees trembled beneath her thinning dress and wondered how long exactly the Dark Lord had been using the curse on her—judging by the resentment he heard in her voice, it must have been enough to break a sixteen-year loyalty to the Dark Lord and enough to give her reason to stir up trouble for him. It certainly fit her personality; she did indeed have an affinity for causing people trouble.

"That's bizarre," Bill said, his eyes rooted on Kuwago. "To be able to force you to use the Cruciatus Curse on yourself…"

"Isn't that possible without use of force?" asked McGonagall doubtfully, still unconvinced.

"Indeed it is," Dumbledore said, nodding to her, "but to use the Cruciatus Curse as effectively as Eris just demonstrated, it requires the desire to cause pain—something the Imperius Curse would be hard put to generate."

"So…now what do we do?" Tonks asked apprehensively. Dumbledore let his gaze fall upon Snape, who was only now recovering from the sudden feedback of the spell, and nodded to him.

"Severus will brew the potion with Eris's help," said Dumbledore. Snape gave Dumbledore an alarmed glance.

"How will she be able to do so? The potion takes ten moon cycles and a written copy can't be made." The bearded wizard smiled, an almost mischievous glint in his eyes.

"That will be quite simple," said Dumbledore. "She has agreed to take on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts."

Unable to believe Dumbledore's words, Snape speechlessly glared at him as the others began speaking all at once. Their arguments were almost identical to the ones he had heard when Dumbledore had announced his appointment to the Hogwarts faculty—all along the lines of questioning a Death Eater's loyalties and the like. It was nothing he hadn't already heard. He was, however, quite irritated, almost to the point of flat-out furious, that Dumbledore had given her that post—the post _he_ had wanted for the past sixteen years. Any sort of desire for the Defense post was no longer Death-Eater-related—no, he had long since lost such a desire, with instead a sort of basic craving for the job taking its place. It was, along with the magic of turkey ham, one of the few hopes, if it could be called such a thing, that kept him going and in control. In control of _what_ was actually quite a good question, but he cherished the feeling and could not help but feel betrayed. Just—_something_—about Kuwago made the blow seem that much worse.

"It is my wish that Eris take the post," Dumbledore said firmly. "She was reluctant, but I believe this may be the best way to make sure Severus has as few difficulties as possible, and it will save Eris from quite a bit of trouble."

"But Albus, does Eris have the knowledge required for such a role?" McGonagall asked, a defiant glimmer in her eyes. "She's been traveling who-knows-where for years!"

"I've been gone so long that I could use a spot of reading," Kuwago said quietly, her breathing nearly normalized. "A quick skim through the textbooks is all I need. It _is _Defense Against the _Dark_ Arts, and I believe I've seen enough of _that_." McGonagall eyed her disdainfully.

"Yes…quite."

"Well then, I believe we have discussed quite enough tonight. We will explore our options, of which I have many, at our next meeting. Now," Dumbledore said, looking to Molly, "I believe you've some hungry teenagers and Order members that will need feeding. Good night to you all."

With a nod to them, Dumbledore spun on his heel and marched himself out the back door as Molly removed the Imperturable Charms on the kitchen door and unlocked it. Without a word, Snape wove between the gaggles of people milling about in the kitchen, intent on leaving before Potter and the Weasley crew could show themselves. They definitely would be less than happy to see him, and he wasn't in a hurry deal with them outside of school—he got quite enough of them during the term. He stopped for a moment before the back door and turned to glance at Kuwago, wondering what she was going to do with herself before the start of the term, though Lupin was thinking along the same lines and had already begun questioning her.

"What are you going to do until the start of the term? Are you staying at Hogwarts?" Lupin asked. Kuwago shrugged.

"I'm not staying at Hogwarts. Not now," she said. "I'm used to wandering around. I'll live." Lupin looked slightly surprised at that and gave her a concerned look.

"Then maybe you should stay for dinner. You look like you haven't been eating enough."

"No, no, I couldn't," replied Kuwago, averting her gaze. "I'll—I'll see you at the next meeting, Remus."

She quietly took her leave of him and, with a brief glance at Snape as she passed, slipped out the back door. Without a backward glance at the people in the kitchen, he followed her quickly in case she Disapparated to who knows where. It seemed he was just quick enough—he caught her arm just as she stopped walking and he forced her around to face him. "No need to grab me, Severus. People might get the wrong impression," she said, a mischievous smirk on her shadowed face. Bristling, Snape released her arm and sneered at her.

"Is everything a game to you?" he snapped furiously. She laughed dryly.

"Most of the time."

"Indeed," Snape said curtly, narrowing his eyes. "Where are you going to go?"

"I don't know. I've got a bit of money. I'll go look for someplace to eat before I meet you in a couple of days. Perhaps I'll chance the Leaky Cauldron," she said offhandedly, though he could see in her face that she was not at all as offhanded as she seemed—if anything, it looked as though she was rather apprehensive at the prospect.

Inwardly quivering in rage at what he was going to now do, Snape snapped, "Come with me. You may stay at my house before the term starts." Carefully making sure the slightest look of disgust did not escape onto his face, he cast his eyes over her bewildered expression and, satisfied, he swept off into the darkness. "Follow me."

As he and Kuwago finally made it to Spinner's End, he angrily wondered what exactly he was getting himself into by inviting her to stay at his house. Surely he was going to be in for a thoroughly aggravating few weeks with her around, but then again, they could get an early start on Umbra Animus. He felt the most minor of twinges of sympathy for her predicament—years as a double agent seemed to have drastically reduced his already pitiful capacity for compassion. Then again, Kuwago fully knew the dangers and near-certain death involved with working for the Dark Lord and it was no concern of his if she hurt herself in the course of her duties; her well-being was, as yet, not pivotal in determining whether he lived to see the next morning.

He did wonder, though, why she pursued the potion for so long, and, more importantly, why she had taken on the Dark Mark in the first place. She had always seemed to him a person with the sort of heart suggestive of those endeavoring towards the Light, while he possessed a heart blackened even before he first stepped foot in Hogwarts. And, to his disquiet, she seemed to know exactly where her life was going; though the double agent role didn't show it, Snape could sense in her an ironclad determination to fulfill some sort of objective in her life. He could sense her unwavering resolve to push forward in the direction she desired—Eris Kuwago knew her path.

Perhaps that was why, even after countless years, she still angered him so.

In the light of a crescent moon dangling in the sky, they finally arrived at his house. Resentfully, he removed the wards he had placed on it and, without a backward glance at Kuwago, unlocked the door and stepped inside. He stood aside to allow her to pass and brusquely shut the door behind her before replacing his security charms and hexes. The dim moonlight cast his dusty sitting room in an ethereal glow, Kuwago standing in the center like a mysterious shadow in the midst of a dream. An irrational and infuriating twinge of apprehension flickered through his heart at the sight of her standing there like a specter common to nightmares, the sort of apparition that the dreamer foolishly follows regardless of any indications of danger.

"Goodness, you've got a lot of books," said Kuwago in awe, looking around at the books lining the walls as he snapped out of his reverie. A lamp flared into life on the small table next to his sofa and a door squeezed between two towering bookcases banged open, sending a shower of dust down from the ceiling. Snape wordlessly strode into his kitchen, leaving her to admire his book collection, and for lack of any other beverage to give her he began to fix some tea. He dropped teabags into a pair of the only teacups he had in the house and, after tapping the aged kettle on his equally aged stove, poured the steaming water into the teacups.

When he returned to the sitting room bearing the tea, Kuwago had taken a seat on the sofa, though she was still staring at the books in admiration. "What, have you not seen _books_ in the past sixteen years as well?" he said. With a disdainful look at her, he handed her a teacup and added coldly, "I haven't got sugar." She shrugged and gratefully took the tea.

"Thank you. Anyway, I couldn't read the books in other countries," said Kuwago, taking a sip of her tea. "English goes only so far in the wizarding world. It's quite the opposite for the Muggle world, though."

"I see."

There was a rather awkward silence as Snape stared at her unblinkingly, leaving his tea untouched while she nervously sipped hers. He supposed that finally being inside a house—even a neglected one like his—was something quite foreign to her, judging by the way she kept shooting spellbound glances about her. Being accustomed to his rather cushy accommodations at Hogwarts, he found it slightly difficult to imagine traipsing around the world in search of something that may or may not have existed. He _did_ have better living conditions than most other Death Eaters, especially those who had escaped from Azkaban. Bellatrix Lestrange often looked downright unkempt whenever he saw her, and he supposed even Lucius Malfoy couldn't be looking too splendid while in Azkaban. However, that would probably be changing relatively soon—the Dark Lord had been hinting about mobilizing the dementors. He wondered how _much_ better off he was, or if perhaps he was in the worst position of all—sandwiched between the Dark and the Light?

"I know it's impertinent to ask, Severus," came Kuwago's voice from afar, jolting him back from the depths of his mind, "but you wouldn't happen to have something to eat, would you?" He shot her an annoyed glare, which she returned with an embarrassed look. "Sorry. But really, anything will do. Canned soup, owl treats, stale bread crusts…anything."

Without a word, he swept back into the kitchen and flicked his wand at a loaf of bread that must be stale by now—it had already been rather stiff when he'd made his sandwich earlier. Two slices were cut from the loaf and, with another flick at his cupboard, two slices of turkey ham flew out and landed on the bread. Placing the newly made sandwich on a plate and unconsciously straightening it out such that the sandwich sat neatly in the middle, he quickly strode back to Kuwago and thrust the plate into her arms as he gracefully turned to take a seat in his armchair.

The look of absolute joy that spread across her face didn't seem to go with the muted "thank you" that she gave him when she took the plate. He watched with mild amusement as she gingerly took a bite, as though hesitant to mar such an apparently wondrous thing. His amusement, however, turned to slight horror at the look she was giving him, as though she was looking upon the face of some sort of hero. With a mental and yet bitter laugh, he wondered if it was possible to be a hero for making a sandwich. Then again, he thought, Potter was a hero even as an infant without doing so much as fixing up a sandwich. With a snort, he dismissed the term "hero" as being completely subjective and arched an eyebrow as Kuwago dipped a crust into her tea.

Snape watched for the entire half an hour she took to eat the sandwich, as if she was savoring each bite and was reluctant to see it go. When she finished, she stared at the plate for moment, looking rather like a child that was wishing for more cake. She snapped out of it after a moment or so and gave him a look of such gratitude that it was as though he'd saved her life. Then again, he may very well have if her gaunt and weary figure was any indication of her health—the fatigue evident on her face made it seem as though she could drop dead at any moment.

"Thank you, Severus," she said, her smile spreading into that mad grin that suggested to Snape that she was about to do or say something that would aggravate him.

His prediction was correct and he found, to his horror, that Kuwago had decided it fitting to give him a hug.

"G-get off me!" he managed to snarl, roughly dislodging her arms from his neck and glaring at her furiously. "What do you think you're _doing_?" She seemed utterly untroubled by his reception of her gratitude and merely sat back down on the sofa.

"Nothing of consequence," she said. He sneered in disgust and straightened the wrinkles from his robe.

"What sort of Death Eater _are _you?" Snape growled irately.

"So the criteria for being a Death Eater means I must be some sort of dark, forever-angry spoilsport, is it?" said Kuwago, giving him a rather amused look that struck a nerve in Snape. He practically bristled with rage, but the experience he had accumulated over the years prompted him to keep a hold on his composure.

"Death Eaters, and the Dark Arts they employ, are generally _dark_, yes," he said, his voice calm and nearly back to its silky drawl, though his clenched fist betrayed his irritation, "especially in this war between the Darkness and the Light." Kuwago smirked at him, and he could feel that nerve being scraped by her self-satisfaction.

"So this has become a war between the Darkness and the Light, has it?" she said, giving a laugh.

"Yes, I suppose it has joined the other reasons for this war," Snape replied smoothly, forcing a smirk onto his face. Kuwago laughed again, as though she thought the very basis of the war to be a great joke, and Snape was hard-pressed not to curse her out of her pitiful existence.

"Well, I don't think so," she said.

"My apologies," he drawled. "What, pray tell, do you think this is a war between?" Kuwago sat in thought for a moment, staring up at the multitude of books covering his walls, before flashing him another deranged grin.

"I think this is a war of hope."

"Oh?" Snape said, arching an eyebrow at her. She nodded to him, a mischievous glimmer in her eye.

"Yes. And what is Umbra Animus but a weapon of the hopeful ones?"


	2. Second Mark

**Marked**

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_Elements taken from HBP and DH, but the story is AU after OotP._

_This update came fast since I just had to edit the version I had before. New updates after this one will probably take much longer. Sorry… ;__; _

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**Second Mark: The First Stroke of the Hour**

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"Tonight, Severus?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then. I trust you will be careful."

"Of course."

Severus Snape slipped out of Albus Dumbledore's office and into the dusk gloom. He briskly made his way to the staff room, sharp eyes taking note of every little shadow along the way, on the guard even at the school that had been his umbrella of protection for more years than he deserved. At each step, his black eyes moved ever faster to take in his surroundings lest the shadows themselves spring forth to engulf him.

There was no fear in this man.

Whatever image resounded in the eyes of others, there was no fear within the heart of Severus Snape. Raw determination defined his existence—determination to complete his purpose, determination to continue living long enough to do so. Complete and unadulterated determination clothed him in black and blurred his persona such that it was at times difficult to ascertain what sort of soul resided in his body. It overshadowed everything until he did not even know the things he himself wanted out of his life. There was nothing for him in his life, nobody waiting for him at the end of the day, nobody there for him to live for—but before he could part from the living plane, he had to finish his mission.

He had to keep his promise.

Regardless of how much he wanted to turn away…

He couldn't. Not from her.

Snape reached the staff room and stepped inside, snapping the door shut smartly behind him. The room was empty save for the one sitting by the window furiously reading a Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. Her lips mouthed the words and her wrist twitched periodically as she read, sometimes clenching her fingers as she turned the pages. To Snape's slight dismay, she rather resembled the student that had, he begrudgingly admitted, quite a remarkable mind beneath her unruly ginger locks.

"I don't suppose you came here just to scowl at me."

Her eyes glinting and a roguish smirk on her face, Kuwago shut her book and arched an eyebrow at him. His scowl became more pronounced as he took a seat in a rather still wooden chair, jabbing his wand at the fireplace as he did so. As a fire flared into life, he fixed Kuwago with an icy gaze. "Tonight we will begin."

"So be it."

"I trust you are prepared?"

"If we wait any longer, I'm afraid I may grow lazy."

"Your nonchalance is _charming_."

"I try."

For a moment, Snape's eyes bored into hers, and as though the Animus Curse connected them once more, he could almost feel the undulations of her mind and heart. There was no fear in her eyes, but he could sense a sort of trepidation hovering in her stare. The faint idea of using Legilimency on her crossed his mind, and suddenly a wall seemed to come down between them.

"I prefer my thoughts private, if you please," said Kuwago, smiling at him but getting up rather abruptly. "I'll come to your office two hours before midnight." As her mouth spread into its all-too-familiar manic smile, she snapped her book shut and swept from the room, the hem of her gown whipping through the doorway just as the door closed.

Snape struggled to keep his mind calm as she left the staff room. She irritated him to no end, and he could only hope that she would actually be _serious_ when they began brewing the potion. Even the Dark Lord's orders would not keep him from cursing an incompetent assistant out of existence, especially with a potion as instrumental as Umbra Animus.

There are reasons that certain bits of magic fade into obscurity, and Snape could only wonder what sort of attribute this potion had that caused it to disappear into, apparently, the depths of Tonga. Did it perhaps require some sort of hard-to-get ingredient, or some particularly morbid one such as the blood of one's mother? Or was the procedure perhaps so difficult and dangerous that few survived brewing it? Or was this the sort of magic that required human sacrifice in order to make it work?

And if it was, who would the Dark Lord deem fit to be sacrificed?

If he wasn't mistaken, and he often wasn't, the way the Dark Lord had treated Kuwago that night did not bode well for her. The Dark Lord definitely saw through whatever act she had been putting up for him, and should a human sacrifice be needed…

Snape stared into the dancing flames of the fire and forced his mind to go blank, thinking only about the flickering lights and the warmth the fire was spewing into the room. It wouldn't do to worry now over the fact that Kuwago would be the prime candidate for sacrifice—the Dark Lord had kept her alive, after all, so Snape knew intuitively that she still had some time yet, that they had some time to work out what his goals were. And while she may be eccentric and supremely irritating, she was certainly no fool. She would not have found the potion's recipe nor would she be alive after bringing it to the Dark Lord if she was indeed a fool. No, she was certainly cleverer than he liked to admit and could probably spin quite a bit of trouble around the Dark Lord all on her own if she tried.

He found that he'd been sitting in the same place and position for nearly an hour, his mind lost in the tumult of his thoughts and his body unable to break through to tell his mind that it was in need of attention. With a resentful sigh, he got out of his chair and headed down to the Great Hall for dinner, where he expected he'd have to endure Kuwago's presence. His face twisted into a scowl when he found that she was indeed there, but, to his relief, she did not badger him at all. Rather, she seemed quite engrossed by the book she was reading and thankfully let him be. As Snape reached for the onion soup ladle, he peered at her book and arched an eyebrow ever so slightly when he found that she was reading a book written in ancient runes. For someone gone sixteen years, she was certainly reading with surprising speed, steadily muttering under her breath and making her goblet of pumpkin juice rattle back and forth.

Kuwago's goblet nearly tipped over when she finally closed the book, breathing out in relief and turning to grin at Snape, who was nearly finished with his soup and was rather disappointed that he hadn't finished in time to keep from speaking with her. But it seemed she was either in one of her odd moods or she had a sudden surge of consideration for the fact that he loathed her, as she wordlessly turned away and piled salad onto her plate. Snape was bewildered at how cheerful she looked as she spread ketchup all over her salad, wondering how in the bloody hell she had such a reserve of good spirits when he himself hadn't smiled in years. It made him question what she had actually been doing those sixteen years; perhaps it wasn't as difficult a job as the Dark Lord and Dumbledore had made it seem—

He quickly caught himself at that thought. Kuwago's job couldn't have been easy—her ragged appearance and general amazement at being back in the world she'd once known suggested otherwise. Years of experience taught him that nothing was ever easy, and he hadn't the right to decide what was easy and what wasn't. He rather wondered if perhaps the ability to look so insufferably cheerful was one of her many eccentricities, and if perhaps she'd learned to twist her mind in knots to produce such outward happiness.

"Are you all right, Severus?" a voice suddenly said to him.

Successfully managing to keep from jerking in slight surprise, Snape gave Kuwago a sideways glance and found her watching him curiously, holding a leaf of lettuce in her fingers. She smiled, regardless that he did not bother replying to her. "Oh, good. I thought maybe you were going to vomit," she said, laughing. She popped the lettuce into her mouth and, after taking a long draught from her goblet, stood up and left without another word.

He watched the Great Hall's doors for a few minutes after she disappeared through them, then downed the rest of his soup and got up himself. Nodding to Flitwick and Sprout as he passed, he left the Hall and headed for his office. Kuwago had told him the week before that the first phase of the potion required some rather obscure supplies that he had needed to personally hunt for in various…_dodgy_ apothecaries. The dragon heartstring was no problem at all, but they also needed an eye of bremwill, a rather uncommon root that he'd just used the last of, and several scoops of trevaran nymphs, which he hadn't needed for several years now.

Glancing at his watch as he swept into his office, he noted that it was nearly eight o'clock. Mumbling to himself, he took a seat at his desk and propped up his head with his arms. Kuwago had described to him the first part of the procedure—and had done quite a bit of cringing as she did so—and they had to be incredibly quick and precise with their hands. Snape had brewed difficult potions before, but this one required very precise movements at very precise times. From what he gathered, it wasn't all that difficult to brew in terms of the actual procedure; it was the speed and manner they needed to add ingredients that would cause the most trouble.

He peered down at the sketches he'd made of the patterns he was to trace using certain liquid ingredients. Though the enchantment on the book made it impossible for Kuwago to sketch the drawings herself, she'd drawn them out in the air for him to copy. The only pattern he was to trace today was a square with an X inlaid onto it, though the subsequent patterns looked to be more and more elaborate. He'd been practicing using harmless liquids of the same consistency as the ingredients he was to use, and he was loathe to admit that some of the later patterns had given him some difficulty—he was a potions genius, after all, not an artist.

At half past nine, Snape began clearing his desktop of his few belongings and set out the ingredients for the first phase of the potion. And, right as his clock turned to ten o'clock, there was a gentle knock on his door. "Enter," he said without turning to look.

"Good evening," said Kuwago, slipping into his office and carrying a large stone basin to his desk.

"That looks like…" Snape started.

"A Pensieve?" said Kuwago, smiling. "It's not. The runes are different—I started carving them in this afternoon. If I'd I known we were going to start tonight, I would have done it earlier."

"Why did you bring it?"

"We use this instead of a cauldron," she said, placing the basin upon the supports that normally would have held a cauldron. Snape glanced at it and was mildly surprised to see that runes covered the entire inner surface in neat rings.

"I see."

"Are you ready, Severus?" asked Kuwago, giving him her irritating lopsided smile and jabbing her wand below the basin, green flames springing into life.

"I've _been _ready. Are _you_?" he replied, staring her in the eye. She simply nodded, untroubled in the least by his glare, and gently pulled the ancient, tattered book out from within her robes. Snape noticed that as she opened it, she seemed to pull in her breath a little more like she did each time the book was even mentioned.

"All right, Severus," she said, and Snape heard a slight quaver in her voice, "you, of course, already know the procedure. There is an incantation I have to recite while we work, but I will be able to assist you, so don't worry."

"Understood. Let us begin."

Taking a carefully measured bottle of essence of dittany, Snape uncorked it and quickly poured it into the basin in a circular, counter-clockwise motion. As soon as even the first drop of dittany touched the surface of the basin, Kuwago began muttering an incantation that was incomprehensible to him. As he stirred, she paused and turned a page in the book. "T-take the sarfalel and add them i-in threes, quickly—p-pattern doesn't m-matter—then stir clockwise f-for one m-minute," she said, her voice quivering audibly as she went back to muttering the incantation. Shooting her a livid glare and making a mental note to beleaguer her for omitting this part from their preparations once they finished, he quickly snatched the sarfalel sticks from the desk and dropped them in threes. At once, the potion sizzled and began bubbling, but where Snape expected to hear the customary _pop pop_, sounds not unlike the plucking of a cello string filled the air instead. As he stirred, his eyes fixed on his watch, the bubbling died down, as did the plucking sounds, and sounds of full chords slowly replaced them. He wasn't even sure if the sounds were coming from the potion itself or in his mind due to the potion's effects, but it seemed to resonate within him, giving him chills throughout his body.

Once he finished stirring, he uncorked the vial of condensed rookwort blood and, with a swift glance at Kuwago to make sure she wasn't going to spring any other new instructions on him, quickly poured it in, tracing the square with the inlaid X. The blood stayed on the surface until the pattern was complete, then glowed orange before fibers of the blood snaked away into the rest of the potion. He began stirring in a star-shaped path as Kuwago began swaying on her feet, her breath gradually growing shorter and shorter as she forced out the words of the incantation. She turned another page and, her eyes widening, paused again. "S-Severus, quickly, g-get the d-dragon heart—d-dragon h-heartstring," she gasped. "I'll s-stir. Hurry!"

Furious, Snape practically dove into his private stores, wrenching the jar of dragon heartstring from the shelf and hurrying back to Kuwago, who seemed on the verge of collapse as she spoke and stirred at the same time. "K-keep adding until t-turns c-clear b-blue," Kuwago quickly gasped to him, then continued with the incantation. Snape began lowering heartstrings into the potion, his steady hand reflecting his mastery of the potion-brewing art, until the potion made a single, harp-like _ping_ and turned a clear blue. At that, Kuwago stopped speaking and looked to Snape, nodding in approval.

"Th-that's it—remember the t-time," she said. She managed to give him a weak smile before collapsing into a heap at his feet.

Leaving her on the floor in her rather pathetic heap, he glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes till one. With a nod to himself, he began cleaning up the empty dishes and bottles, breathing deeply as he struggled to force his anger away. He _was_ going to harangue her about leaving out the two instructions, but he'd had a second thought. Considering the fact that a written copy of the book's contents cannot be made, perhaps it has some defenses against reciting the contents for someone to write down. He wondered if this was part of the reason the potion never quite caught on—what with the need to be constantly muttering an incantation while in pain, and to be ever alert to any overlooked instructions, it was quite difficult indeed. Snape was not so self-absorbed with his genius that he brushed off the potion's difficulty offhandedly; he knew quite well that any slip-ups could be fatal, considering their materials, and that there was no room for egos during the process.

Once he'd finished putting his things in order, Snape knelt down beside Kuwago's unconscious form and rolled her over so she was lying on her back. Her skin was ashen and, when he lifted her eyelids, he found her pupils dilated. Feeling a miniscule pinch of pity for her, he got to his feet and pointed his wand at her, muttering, "_Mobilicorpus._" Her still form rose into the air, as a puppet on strings, and he maneuvered her out of his office and into his chambers. He left her hanging for a moment as he flicked his wand at his tattered sofa, all the books and pillows sitting atop it flying off and scattering all over the floor. With an offhanded sweep of his wand, he set Kuwago's body down on the sofa's worn cushions and conjured a blanket for her. After making sure that she was not going to suffocate in her slightly awkward position and that she was actually still alive and breathing, he gave a sigh of relief and allowed himself to collapse into the single armchair in the room, closing his eyes gratefully.

He hadn't realized that he'd fallen asleep until he glanced at the clock perched on his mantel. It was four in the morning. Blinking to clear his eyes, he turned to see if Kuwago was still breathing. He slowly sat up as he glanced over her, noting that the rise and fall of her torso was stronger now. However, he was slightly concerned that she seemed to have coughed up a little blood onto herself—she hadn't been sick before they started. Conjuring a handkerchief, he took a moment to wipe her face clean before throwing the cloth onto the coffee table. With another glance at her to confirm that she was indeed still breathing, he settled down into his chair once more and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

When he awoke again, it was nearly six and Kuwago had gone. The blanket he'd conjured for her was neatly folded and sitting on the arm of the sofa, and the books he'd scattered were carefully arranged in neat stacks next to it. Snape was just beginning to think that Kuwago was being rather thoughtful, until he realized that she'd left him a cushion fort in a corner of the room with a stuffed lion toy wearing a red-and-gold striped scarf sitting atop it. Any ghost of pity or compassion for her immediately left him, and he promptly jabbed his wand at the fort. The lion toy exploded into stuffing as the cushions scattered all over the room, giving him immense, almost sadistic pleasure at seeing the bits and pieces of lion sail through the air.

Snape sat there a moment, relishing the sight of the balls of stuffing littering his floor, before he got to his feet to take a shower.

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"Good morning!"

Her voice made his head throb. Snape glared at Kuwago, who was smiling brightly at him from behind the day's _Daily Prophet_ issue, and took a seat next to her. There were dark lines underneath her eyes, and she still looked rather pale, though her pallor was not as pronounced as it was before. "Twenty-four hours the potion needs on the heat, correct?" he muttered to her. She nodded as she stuffed half a pancake into her mouth. Snape helped himself to some toast and jam while she strained to force her mouthful of pancake down her throat.

"Then, on the stroke of the next hour, you must add essence of myrrh and stir twice clockwise," Kuwago said quietly, cheerfully reaching for another pancake and slathering it with honey.

"And the result?" asked Snape after he swallowed a mouthful of toast.

"It should—start making music," she said. He glared at her angrily when he caught the slight hesitation in her voice.

"You had better not be _concealing _details from me, _Eris_," he snarled, putting a nasty emphasis on her name. He was, beneath his sneer, pleased to see that he'd made her cringe slightly. "Do you realize that any slip-up we might have could be our _last_? If I hadn't been quick enough to retrieve the heartstring last night, what then?"

"You're right, I'm sorry," Kuwago said, giving him an uncharacteristically pleading look that slightly bemused him. "Last night—I hadn't realized—the instructions weren't there when I read the book for you to write down. They—they appeared once you finished the previous step. I'm sorry. I should have foreseen it." She gave a few heavy coughs before smiling at him and turning her attention back to her stack of pancakes.

Snape snorted irately and downed a goblet of orange juice before getting up from the table and stalking away without a backward glace. He did not cease stalking until he reached his office, where he sullenly took a seat behind his desk. He stared at the potion for a few minutes, allowing the bluish vapors rising from the surface to mesmerize him, before he looked away, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. For a few moments, he thought about planning his lessons, but when had he ever changed his lesson plans? Here he sat, once again pondering what sort of new plan he should make, and again standing up an hour later merely a ghost of one. And with a resigned sigh, he left to take a walk around the lake to see if some fresh air would help him think a little clearer.

The giant squid was lounging in the shallows when he arrived, one of its tentacles slowly undulating on the shore. He paused a moment to watch it, briefly wishing that his life were like that of the giant squid, free of the troubles inherent to humanity and of the troubles caused by the Dark Lord.

"What is it about this lake that draws both those troubled and those in love?" came a voice from behind Snape. He wheeled around, a vein throbbing in his forehead, and found Dumbledore walking toward him, a smile on his wrinkled face.

"Love?" Snape snorted, scowling. Dumbledore held up a hand and gave a light chuckle.

"Only joking, Severus, only joking," said Dumbledore. "How did the first phase of the potion go?"

"Everything is in order," Snape replied, turning to look back at the giant squid.

"Very good. And Eris? I trust she took care of things?"

"Yes. We had a couple close calls, but nothing…_disastrous_," said Snape, folding his arms across his chest.

"What happened, if I may ask?" asked Dumbledore, his voice light and seemingly untroubled. It made Snape wonder if perhaps Dumbledore knew something regarding the potion that Kuwago was not telling him, or if Dumbledore perhaps had some insight, as he always seemed to have.

"Instructions appeared that we were ill prepared for. It was…optimism on our part."

Dumbledore nodded in understanding, as though he'd known all along. "I see. So it is as I thought," he said. When Snape simply stared at him questioningly, he smiled. "Eris had asked my opinion regarding the book. I expected that the book would have defenses against cheating, such as reading the procedure to someone to write down. I suggested that she try it anyway."

"I see."

"In any case, I believe that you and Eris have the potion under control. My _concerns_," Dumbledore gave him the piercing look that Snape knew well, "lie ever with Lord Voldemort."

"Of course."

"Do you believe Eris strong enough to withstand meetings with him?" asked Dumbledore. "When I spoke with her this morning, she did not seem to be in the best of health."

"I cannot be sure," said Snape, unconsciously toying with a loose thread on his robes. "Reading the book seems to take a larger toll on her than I initially expected. That I'm certain she can handle. Meetings with the Dark Lord on top of that, I can't be certain. From what I was able to gather, the Dark Lord seems to view her as someone…expendable."

"Yes, I was afraid of that," Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. "Although, at the moment I believe it best if we _play it by ear_, as Muggles say. Perhaps Eris will prove stronger than either of us believes."

"Perhaps."

Dumbledore gave Snape an approving nod and turned to go back to the castle. As he left, gave Snape a gentle smile, "Please help her in anyway you can." As if he had heard the angry protest erupting unbidden in Snape's mind, Dumbledore looked him in the eye over his half-moon spectacles, and Snape had the distinct feeling that the headmaster knew quite well what was going on inside his head. "If anything, Severus, help her so that the potion proceeds uninterrupted. Please." Before Snape could even begin to pull together a coherent retort, Dumbledore turned and began walking up the path back to the entrance hall.

Snape spent a few moments fuming to himself before he forced himself to calm down, making his way back towards the castle. No matter how much it irritated him to be around Kuwago, Dumbledore was right. She would need help, whether he wanted to willingly give it or not. When he reached the entrance hall, he turned to retreat down to the dungeons but paused a moment and glanced up the stairs leading to the second floor. He rather wondered how Kuwago was doing, as she _had_ looked rather sickly, and there was still the matter of the blood she was coughing up in the early morning.

He swept up the stairs and headed for her office, although he wondered if he should stop by the hospital wing first in case she had the forethought to have Madam Pomfrey check on her. However, as Kuwago's office was closer, he resigned to take a look. Once he reached the door, he gave it a contemptuous glare and knocked curtly. No answer came, so after a moment he knocked again, this time louder. When still no reply came, Snape scowled and opened the door anyway, only to find that her office was empty. He was rather intrigued by the Dark detectors carefully arranged on the shelves, although she didn't have quite as many as the Moody impostor had before. However, as though to make up for it, Kuwago had stuck diagrams all over the walls, some detailing the makeup of the Dark detectors and some illustrating the effects of certain Dark spells on the human body.

After he'd briefly swept his eyes over the walls of the room, and since he'd pass by her private chambers on the way to the hospital wing, decided to check there as well.

He gave a quick knock on her door, not really expecting an answer, and was surprised to hear a faint, "Yes?"

"Kuwago, I need to speak with you."

There was a soft _whoosh_ and the door swung inwards, hitting the wall with a heavy thud. Snape stepped in and was only just able to conceal his disbelief. Kuwago was sitting on a swing hanging from the ceiling, her wand still pointing at the door. She seemed pleasantly surprised that Snape was her visitor and gave him a welcoming smile. "Good morning, Severus. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Snape took a few steps into the room and glanced about before looking back to Kuwago. There were no personal touches to her chambers—only a teetering stack of books sitting on the floor along the wall, and a small bamboo plant on her coffee table. Otherwise, the room was as generic as could be, with a beige sofa and matching armchair positioned around the coffee table and a tapestry of the Hogwarts crest hanging on the far wall. The only other thing in the room that even merited a second glace was the swing she had installed in the ceiling.

"I need to speak with you," Snape repeated once he had cast his eyes around the room. She grinned roguishly at him.

"Is that so?" she said, her smile going slightly lopsided. Snape glowered at her, clenching his fist underneath the folds of his robes. "All right, all right," she relented, giving a dry laugh, "what can I do for you, Severus?"

"You were coughing up blood this morning, were you not?" Snape asked, narrowing his eyes. If he was not mistaken, the smile on Kuwago's face flickered ever so slightly at his words.

"Ah, so you noticed," she said lightly. "I'm rather flattered that you care. Did you like the fort I left you?"

"Don't try to change the subject," Snape snarled, his eyes narrowing even more. "If you die, things could get infinitely more difficult for us. You realize that, don't you?"

Kuwago smiled at him silently, and although there was still a smile on her face, he could tell that she was no longer exuding the amiability that he had grown accustomed to. "I'm not a fool, Severus, regardless of any image of me you may harbor in that head of yours," she said, still smiling but her voice cold and even slightly irate. "Now get out, please."

"You were coughing up blood. Why?" he persisted, not moving from his position. The smile on Kuwago's face seemed to twitch, and it seemed to him that she was trying her hardest to keep that smile there.

"It's an unfortunate side-effect of reading the book."

"If you—"

"Yes, yes, if I die, I know. Get out."

Snorting contemptuously and narrowing his eyes at her, he turned on his heel and swept out of the room. He didn't look back as he left the room, and the door gave reverberating _THUD_ as it slammed in his wake. As he left her office, he slammed the door behind him in response and quickly strode towards the stairway, his strides wide and quick in aggravation. Kuwago's defensiveness was certainly unexpected and practically confirmed that something strange was indeed going on. Even if she was angry because of his admittedly blunt attitude regarding whether she lived or died, in all the unfortunate years that he had known her, he never saw her lose her composure as she just did.

Without even realizing it, Snape once more found himself sitting in his chambers and _almost_ thinking. Once he realized that he was simply sitting and not actually doing much thinking, he attempted to plan his roadmap, the next chess moves to take to reach the ever-elusive checkmate. But regardless of how long he sat there, hours and hours into the day until his stomach was knotting itself in hunger, his mind could not produce anything to give him any more sense of direction than the Umbra Animus potion could. There was but one clear path for him, and, while it was relieving to finally have a path illuminated for him, he knew there were other options hidden where the light does not reach.

When his stomach could take it no longer, he dourly fixed himself a sandwich and, flicking his wand at a bookcase, caught a Dark Arts book and sat down to read it. Every few pages or so, he scribbled notes on a worn piece of parchment, which had lines of notes crisscrossing in every which way. On Dumbledore's orders, for the past few weeks he had been accumulating a mass of notes on any Dark magic he thought the Dark Lord could even be _thinking_ of using. Dumbledore had given Snape a few suggestions, and, continuing on the same thread that Dumbledore had been on, he'd continued, although now he was running out of steam. The Dark Lord certainly had a vast reserve of Dark magic knowledge at his disposal, though he did show the propensity to favor certain ones over others. Regardless, the more preparation the better, or so Dumbledore said.

It was a quarter till 1 AM when he heard a sharp knock on his door. Shutting his book and getting up from his chair, he silently steeled himself for either a very angry Kuwago or an insufferably happy one. He wrenched the door open and found to his dismay that it was the latter looking up at him. "Good evening, Severus," she said in her disgustingly cheery voice.

"We have fifteen minutes," Snape said, brushing past her without returning the greeting. He stood next to his desk, glancing down at the potion simmering in the basin, and turned to look at her. "I've already prepared the myrrh. We stir clockwise for one minute, correct?"

"Correct," she said. "In five minutes, I'm going to start the incantation."

"Very well."

They stood in silence, neither of them speaking. The grin had disappeared from Kuwago's face, her face instead suggesting that she was perhaps apprehensive of what was to come. Once five minutes had passed, she took a deep breath and, after gingerly pulling out the ragged book and opening it with a grimace, the air around them was once more filled with the mutterings of the incantation. Snape stared at his watch intently, his mind blocking out any other thought in anticipation for adding final ingredient of the first phase.

At ten minutes, as the minute arm of his watch finally fell upon the twelve, Snape quickly uncorked the vial of myrrh and, with practiced skill, he let a thin trickle of myrrh fall upon the surface of the now-bubbling potion and quickly made a swirl pattern. Once the final drop of myrrh touched the surface, the entire pattern sank into the potion, and he immediately began stirring clockwise. As the time edged closer and closer to one minute, out of the corner of his eye he saw Kuwago beginning to sway on her feet, although she forged on with the incantation and seemed to even renew her vigor.

In the single minute following the first stroke of the hour, Snape's entire world seemed to explode into a torrent of chords and harmonies, his mind filling with resonating arpeggios that wrapped around all conscious thought, robbing him of his capacity to even think of anything but of the unearthly music that seemed to make even his soul collapse in upon itself.

And all too soon, the music stopped.


	3. Third Mark

**Marked**

-----

_Elements taken from HBP and DH, but the story is AU after OotP._

_Wow, I haven't updated in forever. For anybody reading, sorry about that. I'm pretty slow with writing because I've got tons of other things to do. So…here we are. __Anywho, this chapter is a tad slow-paced. My apologies._

-----

**Third Mark: A Small Window to See Within**

_Joy._

_Sorrow._

_Love._

_Hatred._

_The undulations of the soul…_

-----

Floating and bobbing…

Bobbing and floating…

Where was his mind?

Was it his?

…What?

More importantly, where had the wondrous music gone?

Severus Snape opened his bleary eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. The cold stone floor, the ghostly light dancing on the walls…This was not a place suited for music. This was…

His mind stopped a moment. He cast his eyes around, and as his mind processed the sights of the floor and walls, it was as though he was slowly waking up from a long, long nap.

His consciousness came flooding back, and he realized he was lying behind his desk, splayed upon the cold floor of his office. He put a hand to his face and found, to his dismay, that he was covered in a cold sweat. He groaned as he got to his feet and felt a dull throb on the side of his head and a mild ache in his neck. Grimacing, he arched his back and stretched his neck this way and that, stopping only when he heard a series of grotesque yet satisfying cracks emanate from his spine. How long had he been lying there?

He hadn't noticed it before as he was preoccupied with the aches in his body, but he found that the sound of ragged breathing was floating upwards from the floor. Carefully sidling around his desk so as not to disturb the potion, he peered down and found Kuwago sprawled rather ungracefully on the floor. She seemed to be unconscious and her chest was moving erratically, her breathing labored. He knelt down beside her and found, to his surprise, that her ashen face was streaked with tearstains. There seemed, however, to be nothing else physically wrong with her apart from the ragged breathing and the pallor of her skin; there was no blood and her bones seemed to be unbroken. The way she was positioned on the floor did suggest that she'd fallen backwards onto her back, so there was the distinct possibility that she'd hit her head on the floor on her way down.

"Kuwago," said Snape, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a light shake. When she did not respond, he shook her again with a little more force. "Eris. _Eris_."

His efforts were rewarded when she moaned and opened an eye. "Whuhh happun?" she mumbled.

"Can you get up?" asked Snape, ignoring her question—or what he thought was a question.

"I—th-think sssooo," Kuwago replied. Immediately she attempted to sit up, seemed to realize that she in fact could not, and rolled over onto her stomach as she pushed herself off the floor. Rolling his eyes, he took hold of her arm and pulled her to her feet. To his dismay, when he let go, she swayed and her knees seemed to give out, and he was forced to snatch her arm to keep her from falling on her face.

"I'm taking you to the hospital wing," said Snape, pulling her toward the door.

"No, no, wait…Is the potion a-all right?" she managed to ask between gasps, straining toward the desk. "It should b-be a deeper shade of blue now…"

Snape strode over to his desk—though he kept a firm grip on Kuwago's arm—and peered into the stone basin. The potion was indeed a rich shade of translucent blue now, and a single thin line of vapor was rising from the center of the potion's surface, spiraling upward as it wafted into the air. "It seems to be fine. Should the fire be put out or not?" said Snape, glancing to Kuwago expectantly.

"No, l-leave the fire. It should stay like that until the n-next part," she said, looking incredibly relieved as she shakily wiped her eyes with a sleeve. She wobbled in Snape's grip a moment, as though her relief was such that she was ready to pick up where she'd left off—namely, unconsciousness. Snape heaved her up to keep her on her feet and began pulling, or indeed, dragging her towards the door, as she seemed wholly incapable of even standing on her own.

"I'm taking you to the hospital wing," he said as she stumbled through the doorway. "Considering your rather dismal state, I believe it pertinent to have Poppy check you."

Kuwago managed to turn toward him, her eyes pleading with him as though he'd said he was going to send her off to her death. "No, please, can you just—can you just take me to my chambers?" she asked, making a pathetic attempt at an offhanded laugh. "I'm completely fine, Severus. I assure you."

Snape narrowed his eyes at her and tightened his grip on her arm, causing her to wince and give a quiet groan of pain. "I suggest you do not make light of your health," he growled. "We go to the hospital wing."

As they made their slow and supremely frustrating way out of the dungeons and up to the hospital wing, Snape rather wondered what it was that had rattled Kuwago so. She was on the whole an irritating and insufferably cheerful woman who seemed to find everything to be a game, but here she was being apprehensive at the prospect of getting checked at the hospital wing. He wondered if the glorious music he'd heard had affected her mind negatively—she was certainly _unbalanced_ enough that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that her mind reacted differently than other people's. The very prospect, however, didn't sit well in Snape's stomach and he instinctively knew that whatever it was troubling Kuwago, it wasn't the harmonies or arpeggios or chords that had exploded forth from the potion. He couldn't quite put a finger on it, but a nagging feeling that seemed to be prodding his consciousness told him that the music had been much too pure—exactly _how _music could feel so pure was beyond him—to be the problem.

However, the more he thought about the music, the more it seemed to slip away, and by the time they'd reached the hospital wing's entrance, he felt he wasn't quite sure if he'd heard such music at all. There was no way for music to be "pure," and there was no way that music alone could have brought him, Severus Snape, to his knees. It must have been some effect of the potion—perhaps an effect that induced some sort of debilitating hallucination. After a moment though, he began to feel that something about that conclusion didn't sit well in his stomach. But the more he tried to think about it, the farther it seemed to disperse into the annals of his mind.

"Severus, what on earth have you been doing? Are you all right?" Pomfrey said when she found them stumbling through the doors.

"Of course I'm all right," said Snape. He led Kuwago to the nearest bed and let her unceremoniously drop onto the mattress, ignoring her quiet squeak of dismay.

"Are you quite sure? You look as though you've been crying. The both of you do," said Pomfrey, looking rather bewildered.

Snape immediately brought a hand to his face and snatched a hand mirror he saw sitting on the nearest bedside table. To his dismay, his eyes seemed to be rather red and a little puffy, as though he had indeed been crying. His eyes darted to Kuwago, who had managed to pull herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, and found that her eyes looked even more red and puffy than his own did. Did the both of them cry in the time they were unconscious?

"Does it perhaps have something to do with the potion?" Pomfrey asked. "The Headmaster informed me that the two of you would be working on a rather difficult potion tonight, and that you may be dropping in."

He looked to Pomfrey in silence as the vague memory of the pure music wafted about his mind. Was that it? Had he been driven to tears by the music? He, Severus Snape?

"Indeed," he said finally.

"There was nothing else to really cry about," Kuwago said, giving a rather drunken-sounding laugh. "Unless you count being stuck with Severus." She giggled quietly to herself, unaware of the livid glare Snape was attempting to spear her with, before she slowly lay down on the bed. "My head hurts…" she murmured, putting a hand to the back of her head and grimacing in pain.

Pomfrey immediately swooped down toward her and examined the back of her head. She spent a few moments gently examining the area where Kuwago had put her hand before pulling out her wand and tapping Kuwago's head. "That should make the swelling go down," said Pomfrey. "It might be rather tender, but you won't have a great lump on the back of your skull. You're going to stay here for the night and rest. You may have a very mild concussion. I imagine you fell and hit your head rather hard."

"No, I can go back to my chambers," Kuwago protested, though since Pomfrey had already made up her mind, there was really no escaping it.

"I have some questions for you. You're going to stay here," Pomfrey said decisively. When Kuwago gave her an exasperated look, she added, "Now, now, it will only be for tonight—as long as you're healthy, of course." By the look of defeat on Kuwago's face—which, incidentally, rather confused Snape as he didn't expect Kuwago to make such a face—it seemed that Kuwago had no more energy to fight back. Snape wondered if there was something she wanted to hide from Pomfrey, since she had made such a fuss about coming to the hospital wing in the first place.

"If that is all, Poppy, I shall—"

"And you!" Pomfrey said, rounding on him before he could turn to leave. "Are you quite all right? Why don't you let me have a look at you? Did you hit your head as well?"

"I assure you that there is no need for an examination," Snape said. "As you can see, I am quite all right. I _did_ just bring Kuwago up here."

"I insist, Severus," she began, but Snape interrupted.

"As do I, Poppy. I am perfectly fine. Now if you please, I've work to do," he said curtly, turning and heading for the door.

"You do realize it's six in the morning, don't you, Severus?" Pomfrey called after him as he swept out the door. "At least get something to eat, or by Merlin, I will hunt you down…!"

-----

Snape's head twitched ever so slightly at the knock on his office door. "Enter," he said without looking up from his lesson plans.

"Good evening, Severus," came a familiar voice.

He glanced up and found Dumbledore smiling down at him, with that oh-so-familiar expectant smile he had learned to dislike, as it meant that Dumbledore wanted to talk to him about something important. "Good evening, Headmaster," said Snape, putting his quill down.

As he took a seat in the chair on the other side of Snape's desk, Dumbledore peered into the basin at the blue potion gently simmering on the fire. "I commend you, Severus," he said after taking his seat. "Your skills with potions brewing never cease to amaze."

Snape merely looked to him silently, waiting for him to finish with the pleasantries and get to what he really wanted to talk about. Fortunately—or unfortunately, perhaps—it seemed that the potion itself wasn't what Dumbledore was most concerned by. "I spoke with Poppy earlier today regarding your short-lived visit to the hospital wing," Dumbledore said. "I'm sure you'll be glad to know that Eris is doing much better now and is looking much less pale than she was when I visited this morning."

"I see," said Snape. He supposed he was glad that Kuwago had sustained no lasting damage, though he was slightly disappointed by the fact that she'd probably be back to her irritating self the next time he had to see her.

"However, Poppy did inform me of something rather curious," Dumbledore continued. "She said that the both of you arrived looking as though you had been crying."

"If I had been crying, I was not aware of it," Snape said, averting his gaze. "When we had finished the potion's first phase, I vaguely remember hearing music, and then I woke up on the floor. I've no recollection of the time in between."

"Music, you say?" said Dumbledore, stroking his beard. "Curious, though not surprising, that it should present itself that way. It must have been beautiful indeed to have brought you to tears."

"As I said, Headmaster, I've no recollection of anything but the music and the floor," Snape said rather brusquely. He felt rather weak and vulnerable being accused of crying, and he would prefer to simply forget about it all.

"I see, I see," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. After a moment, the almost absentminded, thoughtful air seemed to leave him, and was replaced with an aura that seemed much more determined and directed. "The next phase of the potion occurs at the next full moon, correct?" he said, though it seemed less like a question and more like he was simply confirming it with himself. "I expect Voldemort will want to know if the first phase went well before the start of the next."

Snape nodded silently for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. Dumbledore was quite right in expecting that the Dark Lord would want an _update_ of sorts. Though Snape could not be sure when it would be, it would surely be sometime within the next three weeks. He rather thought that if the Dark Lord was at his worst, he would summon Kuwago and torture her a bit to keep her—_focused_. "It will probably be sometime early in the school term," Snape said finally. "Exactly when, I cannot say."

"Does Kuwago share this view?" asked Dumbledore.

"Admittedly, I haven't yet thought to ask her," said Snape, frowning at the idea.

"Please do so soon, Severus, and inform me of your thoughts after you do," Dumbledore said. When Snape gave him a single nod, he smiled, his eyes twinkling, as he got up. "Forgive me, Severus, for intruding. I shall take my leave."

Snape always felt rather disoriented after speaking with Dumbledore. It always seemed to be a guessing game as to whether the man already knew what was happening and was simply confirming his knowledge, or if he genuinely did not know. The smile Dumbledore gave him seemed to suggest the former, as did the relatively short and painless conversation. He did imagine that he would have a much longer and much more serious conversation once he or Kuwago are able to confirm the Dark Lord's wishes, and Snape was not looking forward to it or the headache it would bring.

There was one worry he had, however. If he were to assume that Kuwago would be similarly incapacitated in one way or another every time they completed a phase of the potion, she would not be in the best of health if the Dark Lord were to summon her. Snape begrudgingly admitted that she had some aptitude with Occlumency, but should she arrive for her meetings with the Dark Lord in such a weakened condition, it would prove difficult for her to shield her mind from the Dark Lord's probing. He supposed he might not be giving Kuwago the benefit of the doubt, but there would be no second chances with the Dark Lord. Especially not for her. She might be tortured and toyed with for some time, but Snape could tell that ultimately she meant little to nothing to the Dark Lord.

With a last glance at his mostly complete lesson plans—mostly complete because he hardly changed them from year to year and thus they required little effort to prepare—he gave a contemptuous snort and got to his feet. He peered at the potion on his desk to make sure it wasn't turning into some horrific shade of vomit yellow or the like, before slipping out of his office and casting several security wards on the door. Satisfied, he quickly swept out of the dungeons and headed for the hospital wing, hoping that Kuwago was no longer disoriented so that he could hold a proper conversation with her.

When he arrived at the hospital wing, he found her sitting up in her bed with a tray hovering over her lap, happily stacking wooden blocks and looking either incredibly childish or utterly insane—Snape was unable to decide between the two. She looked up and, when she caught sight of him, gave a laugh and a lopsided grin before Vanishing the blocks and tray with her wand. "Why hello, Severus," she said, cocking her head slightly.

"Kuwago," Snape said simply as he took a seat in the chair beside her bed. They sat in silence, until Snape gave her an expectant glare.

"Poppy thinks I need to stay here overnight," Kuwago explained when she realized what Snape wanted to know, still smiling and looking wholly unbothered by the fact. "I almost convinced her to let me go, but then Dumbledore showed up. And so here I am. Want to stack blocks with me?"

"_No, I do not want to stack blocks with you_," Snape hissed, scowling. "Are you incapable of taking things seriously?"

"We've been through this before, remember?" Kuwago said, laughing. "I believe it went something like, 'Is everything a game to you?' and I told you, 'Most of the time.'"

Snape glared at her in irritation. Did her impudence, feigned or otherwise, show no bounds? She let out another laugh—presumably at his expression—before folding her arms across her chest. "What do you need, Severus?"

He looked furtively in either direction instinctively to make sure there was nobody around—not that there was anybody present that would find their conversation to be troubling—before fixing his gaze on Kuwago again. "The Dark Lord is going to summon either you or me, or the both of us. Are you prepared?" asked Snape.

"Do you believe there is any way to be completely prepared when meeting the Dark Lord?" Kuwago replied rather offhandedly, giving him a roguish grin. He sneered contemptuously at her and gave a derisive snort. "I expect his summons to come sometime next week."

"As do I. The term begins next week. Your health…_concerns _me," said Snape, unable to keep a hint of disdain from his voice.

"I'm _flattered_, Severus, but I'm quite sure I'll be perfectly fine," Kuwago said, waving her hand as though to wave his concerns away. "Or rather, as fine as I can be around the Dark Lord." Snape rolled his eyes.

"And it is that degree of 'fine' that concerns me. Should you be in poor condition upon his summons, your Occlumency may not—"

"Your lack of faith in me offends," Kuwago said, frowning in mock disappointment.

Snape's sneer became more pronounced at her words and his hands clenched into fists in his lap. He was almost certain that it had been quite some time since he spoke to someone so inexplicably aggravating; Snape was _just_ open-minded enough to realize that with any other people, their exchanges might fit the criteria for witty banter. However, he did not find their banter to be particularly witty, nor did he even speak with the intent of inviting it. Though he did suppose that was where the problem actually lay—he was not a person with a penchant for witty banter.

"I have work to do," Snape said abruptly as he got up from his seat.

"Are you _suuuure_ you don't want to stack blocks with me?" Kuwago asked hopefully. The disgustingly cutesy inflection of her voice and the unbalanced grin on her face did not go well together at all and rather aggravated Snape, whose sensibilities were unable to decide whether he should be disgusted or disturbed.

Snape turned to leave, but before he could storm out the door and into the dark corridor, Kuwago's voice stopped him. "The next phase of the potion must be done the day before the next full moon. Just thought you'd like to know," she called from the bed. He briefly looked over his shoulder at her, giving a small nod of assent, before striding out of the hospital wing and heading for the staircase leading to the floors below.

However, he glanced over in the direction of the Headmaster's office entrance when he reached the second floor. It took him a few moments to realize that his legs had already taken the initiative to begin walking him towards the office, but once he did regain conscious control of his limbs, he simply went with it. Dumbledore had asked to be kept informed, and so Snape supposed now was as good a time as any to do the informing. When he reached the gargoyle guarding the staircase to Dumbledore's office, he took a few breaths to calm his mind, forcing himself to stop being irritated by the irritating difficulties he had speaking with irritating people, before giving the gargoyle the password—"Ice mice."

Dumbledore was reading the _Daily Prophet_ at his desk when Snape entered the office. He glanced over the top of the paper and smiled. "Ah, Severus. I trust you've spoken with Eris?" Dumbledore asked. Snape walked to the Headmaster's desk but did not take a seat. He thought vaguely about how often he frequented the office, how often he was forced to sit before the desk

"I have. She agrees that the summons will come soon. She insists," Snape added, unable to completely hide the annoyance in his voice, "that her health is not an issue."

"Do you believe that to be the case?" Dumbledore asked as he carefully folded up the _Prophet_ and laid it on his desk, gesturing for Snape to sit down.

"No. She is foolishly optimistic," said Snape once he took a seat. "She may have a grasp of Occlumency, but if recent events are any indication, the Dark Lord could force his way in with some effort."

Dumbledore thought silently for a moment, propping his elbow on his desk and touching his fingertips together. The heavy silence made Snape feel rather stifled, as he was sure he knew what Dumbledore was going to say. "The risk of not answering a summons far outweighs the risk of weak Occlumency," said Dumbledore finally. "With the latter, there is some chance that her confidence is not unfounded."

"Indeed. I suppose there is no avoiding it."

"Right you are, Severus," Dumbledore said lightly.

Snape rather wondered what the point of the whole conversation was if there was no viable alternative to not answering a summons. Frustration began twisting his mind about, as was common in his dealings with Dumbledore; the man always seemed to know what was happening, and at times Snape felt as though he and the Order were puppets being controlled by an omniscient puppeteer. Snape knew that Dumbledore was not as seemingly all-knowing as he sometimes appeared—far from it, as Dumbledore himself often admitted—but the feeling of frustration was there.

"Now," Dumbledore said, bringing Snape out of his brief reverie, "if my sources have any merit, I believe Voldemort intends to search for something in the Department of Mysteries."

"He mentioned to me only twice recently that he was interested in something at the Department of Mysteries," Snape replied, frowning. "Have you any idea what it is he wants there?"

"I'm led to believe he may be trying to find confidential research regarding human souls."

"Souls?" Snape said, mildly bemused.

"Indeed. I expect that the Umbra Animus potion has prompted him to seek defenses against its effects, should you or Eris betray him."

"I see."

"I believe he will be rather unsuccessful, but please pay attention for anything he might say to the contrary."

"Why do you believe he'll be unsuccessful?" Snape asked, arching an eyebrow. It wasn't that he doubted Dumbledore per se, but rather that, with the Dark Lord's influence in the Ministry, it was difficult to believe that the Ministry or the Order could stop him from obtaining what information he wanted.

Dumbledore smiled and closed his eyes, pensively resting his head in his hands. "Oh, my boy, I've no doubt that Voldemort has the ability to eventually find the research. However, he has done unspeakable things. He has torn his soul apart, and for that reason, I should think he would have a difficult time interpreting whatever he gets his hands on."

"And that is where I come in."

"And that, Severus, is where you come in."


End file.
